UPDATE: Teaching Toni Morrison (1/25/05; collection)

Call For Papers: Collection of assignments and lesson plans on ToniMorrison's prose and fiction

The Fiction of Toni Morrison: Teaching Race, Culture, and Identity

I am currently soliciting contributions from university instructors(professors and graduate students/teaching assistants) for a collection ofmaterials -- teaching strategies and assignments -- on the work of ToniMorrison. Contributions may come from a variety of disciplines, includinghistory, Africana Studies, American Studies, English, Rhetoric, and Women'sStudies.

This project affirms the central importance of Morrison's contribution toAmerican letters in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. As we alreadyknow, scholarship on Morrison numbers in the hundreds of essays andfull-length texts, with the bulk of attention paid to this Nobel Laureatefrom professional scholars. Currently, however, no text exists that offersmaterials explicitly designed to be used in the classroom. The anthology,tentatively titled The Fiction of Toni Morrison: Teaching Race, Culture,and Identity, is intended to showcase the excellent work that has been donein the classroom that makes visible Morrison's contribution to Americancultureparticularly our relationship to the history of racism as well as toidentity and cultural politics. This anthology will provide teachers atboth secondary and post-secondary levels with specific assignments andrationales of Morrison's fiction and prose. Whether an instructor isteaching Morrison for the first time or for the tenth time, this collectionwill serve as a valuable pedagogical tool to enhance the teaching ofMorrison's work.

Please submit assignments and lesson plans, with a short (3-5 pages)rationale that explicitly discusses how you approach Morrison's work in theclassroom.

Below is a list of suggested topics/themes but is not at all inclusive. Themost unique and innovative approaches to teaching Morrison's work will beconsidered for the anthology.

The Novels: * Any topic dealing with any of the novels, from The Bluest Eye to Love(submissions are particularly welcome on Tar Baby and Love).Thematic Concerns: * How the themes of literacy, identity, and whiteness function inMorrison's Nobel Lecture, Site of Memory,and/or Playing in the Dark, andseveral of the novels. * Morrison's Nobel Lecture as it explores whether language is living ordead, and what its limitations are if it is dead. If language is a system,partly as a living thing over which one has control, but mostly as agencyasan act with consequences,then how might we use language is to tell stories,to make sense of our lives? * How Morrison complicates our reading by revising traditional, linearnarrative structures to create a multi-vocal text that complicates ourunderstanding of history and highlights the importance of memory * How such narrative structures illustrate the way memory operates intelling the past * How Morrison uses the African folk tradition and stream ofconsciousness technique to illustrate how these work to complicate thedominant culture's account of slavery * The role of journeys, both secular and spiritual * The importance of storytelling and history in the shaping of a self,from childhood to adulthood, from innocence to maturity * The meaning of selfhood, particularly the importance of maintainingit in the face of reductionist thinking and essentializing tendencies. * The role of love, motherhood, and gender in several of Morrison's novels * The importance of love and its multi-faceted definitions * How Morrison uses characters in Beloved as a vehicle to explore theproblematic nature of gender and gender roles in slavery * How Morrison uses characters in Sula to explore the role of men inrelationship to women * The themes of violence, loss, and regeneration * The role of history in fiction * The role of racial self-loathing and its consequencesMore options are welcome!

Submission Guidelines:

Please send completed and polished materials (assignments and rationales)via e-mail attachment (you may be asked later on to submit a hard copy) byJanuary 25, 2005. Email submissions accepted only as MS Word attachment.Late submissions will be considered but early submissions are welcome!